1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to processing broadcast data in a Mobile Ad-hoc Network. More particularly, the present invention relates to processing broadcast data in a Mobile Ad-hoc Network which can increase bandwidth and improve reliability in transmission of broadcast data in a Mobile Ad-hoc Network (MANET) environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCT/IP) in the Internet consists of three major components, namely, a host (computer), physical networks connected to the host and a router for interconnecting the physical networks. Local Area Network (LAN) and Wide Area Network (WAN) data link technologies are used to support establishment of the physical networks.
TCP/IP in the Internet indicates a suite of protocols including rules for controlling data exchange in a Peer-to-Peer (P2) computer network, in which IP functions to provide connectionless best effort data delivery service.
Mobility Support IP or Mobile IP is a currently standardized form of IP-based mobile network, in which a mobile host executes communication through data transmission with a base station linked with a wired network at a one hop distance.
The mobile Ad-hoc network is envisioned to support a massive network such as the Internet or inter-node communication in an environment which has an economical disadvantage or a physical obstacle to constructing an infrastructure requiring a number of nodes. In the mobile Ad-hoc network, respective nodes can move freely without restriction. Since there is restriction in the consumption of resources and electric power, the mobile Ad-hoc network cannot use routing protocols such as those used in existing wired networks.
Current routing protocols can be generally divided into a reactive mode and a proactive mode. According to the reactive mode, each mobile node searches for the shortest paths via control messages only before the transmission of data, and then transmits the data through the searched shortest paths.
On the contrary, a mobile node using the proactive mode periodically transmits control packets to constantly search for paths and distances to other nodes, and thus can promptly launch data transmission through known shortest paths.
In the Ad-hoc network, nodes share a wireless media, and all of the nodes can transmit data at any time if necessary.
As a result, contention occurs for shared channels. Since resources are restricted in the wireless media as compared with a wire media, data loss through such contention and resultant collision is a serious problem that must be solved.
As an approach to overcome the above problem of collision resulting from contention, control messages of Request To Send (RTS) and Clear To Send (CTS) are used between a sender node and a receiver node in the Ad-hoc network.
This approach corresponds to unicast communication. However, the nodes use important control data for providing network information or routing path information via broadcast communication, which provides no effective solution to broadcast data loss caused by collision.
In order to avoid collision resulting from contention in the wireless media, various efforts have been made to process broadcast data by designating relayer nodes and via flooding.